1,2,3 Infinity

Soon after the war, the above phrase, 1,2,3 Infinity, was made famous by a book either as a theme or as the title.

I do not know what was meant by that book, but it means to me that One who moves from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3 can reach Infinity.

This theme can be explained from every point of view of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, but let me confine myself to those aspects practically met with by the devotees. They are,

- Where you end, even if it is 3, there Mother begins.

- If you aim at an infinite progress in any field, locate corresponding potentials in you corresponding to the faculties demanded by the field and fully utilise them.

- The potentials may be aspiration, will, energy, force, power, skills. At whatever stage you find them, as they are a graded chain, convert them into the next stage and continue till it is fully utilised.

- Do the same in the scale of physical to spiritual.

- Whenever you begin, you must go to the end or till your energies are exhausted.

Before you launch on this project, choose the field in which you wish to touch infinite progress and study the field until you acquire an expert knowledge.

This theme admits of a very long explanation, but the main idea is already conveyed.

You may begin where you are by personal effort but aim at consecration andsurrendersomewhere on the way.

Guarantee fullseriousness, exhaust your energies or forces or powers fully, aim at surrender at some point. There ends your part, if you too end there. Where you end, Shewill begin, you will see.

This is a method that will surely succeed. One who wants to become famous in music, politics, athletics, or writing will have a lot to learn in those fields.

There is no compromise in learning about the field. One must know, know very well all that is there to know.

Whether it is Charles Darwin or Bill Gates or Lincoln or Vinobha, each of them workedfor a lifetime to acquire all the knowledge of their fields. Rather, they created them.

What they created, we must learn. There is no compromise.

That is our part. In implementing the acquired knowledge, naturally our small energies will soon be exhausted. This too is a must. Then Mother takes over.

Still, this too is a method.

Let us resort to the very best of methods Sri Aurobindo has given - Surrender.

When you know a method fully well, instead of doing it, if you surrender it, the results will be instantaneous.

Though we call Surrender a method, in essence, it is not. It is the evolving Spirit realising itself as the Spirit that has forgotten itself and recovering the remembrance. That remembrance becoming an act of restoring its original status, is surrender.

The power of surrender comes from the fact of the part trying to become the whole.

It starts with Self-awareness.

Self-awareness is recognised as Memory.

Memory moves into action.

The action is to restore itself, that is, Self-discovery.

The original aim of creation is Joy through Self-discovery.

Surrender is the movement by which the involved evolves into the Original Absolute.